Convenience Stores
by jpotters
Summary: Jess Mariano is tired of being the 'sad boy', having no direction in life, he failed high school, failed Luke, failed Rory, he leaves in the middle of the night on the way to his new journey but is stopped for a moment and takes time to reflect what he's done and hopefully finds some sort of resolution - as best as Jess Mariano can.


**There was a time when I pretty much fucked up my high school career and wasn't sure if I wasn't gonna graduate – but, somehow, I did, but there was a time where I was literally Jess for a good couple of years cos of some shit I was going through. God bless Jess. This boy is so misunderstood. **

**Don't own Gilmore Girls. Or Jess. Or David Bowie. Or Dylan Thomas. If I did well I wouldn't be typing this. **

Jess feels it late at night – with his head against the window he feels it. The same pain he's been feeling since he could remember. There is emptiness – one that no one could ever really fill, and when he feels it, it's almost like he can't breathe. But he does his damn best to act like he's doing just fine.

He's driving – not sure where he's going, then again, that was his entire life. He hates long nights like these, he loves the driving part, but he hates that there's no good music playing, that he doesn't have his partner in crime – even though Rory would never actually commit the crimes that he would – but it's the thought that she was sitting next to him that made him feel better. He hates that people don't use their blinkers and he hates that his senses become way more heightened when he's like this.

There is a darkness that has stayed inside of him, and leaving Stars Hollow is the final straw, the last piece of string he had. All connections have been cut and he has no idea what to do with himself. His hands hold onto the steering wheel as if it was the only thing keeping him together, and honestly it is. The darkness had crept into his head and stayed for a while, he turns the air on, and the cool air should help him feel better. His skin is burning up, he's starting to feel trapped in this car, he's the one driving – he can stop the car if he wants, but he doesn't. He keeps on driving.

It's like small memories flash before him – everything that he had done wrong. Every small screw up. It was like he was created to fuck everything up, he knows that he could be better. He should be better. Not tonight. It's too much, there's not enough energy in him to fight anything. The good and evil rage on inside of him. It reminds him of Dylan Thomas. He's the only one in the car and he begins to quote what he remembers.

**[ **_Do not go gentle into that good night,  
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. _**]**_  
_

Jess grabs his pack of cigarettes remembering the first time he ever lit one. He was fifteen – some of his friends met at the park, it was the local one, walking distance, all he needed to do was sneak out the window like he always did. He had held his jacket to himself, looking around the corners, but by this age he wasn't afraid of the dark. If anything, he thought, the dark should have been afraid of him. He pursued his lips as he met up with the girl he was currently dating, she wanted to hold hands, and he said she should stick her hands into her own pockets. It was warmer that way, anyways. Or so he thought – he didn't catch the clues.

There were five of them, Jess sat at one of the benches, his friend Ben had sat next to him while Giovanni sat next to Ben and they took up one bench. His girlfriend sat on the other side on the second bench and she looked at him but he wasn't looking at her as Brian passed the cigarettes out. He had taken one, never having smoked one before but he was a quick learner when he wanted to be.

They cuffed the lighters and he watched as they inhaled and then inhaled again. Seemed easy enough. He did the same and then he blew out a large cloud of smoke, the rush had hit him hard but instead of coughing like most people, he smirked. He smoked the whole goddamned thing and then asked for a second.

That night was fun, they had all ran around the park, one of their friends stole a bottle of vodka, they ran from the cops and met back at the park and shared that. His friends were good people – they were just born on the wrong side of the tracks like Jess.

Coming back from the memory, Jess lights the cigarette and takes a long drag from it, rolling the window down, turning the volume up because there's finally a decent song playing. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel and for a single moment he pretends that Rory is in the car and when he looks over to her seat she isn't there but the lonely pack of cigarettes is there and he has to train himself to think that's all he needs.

When Jess runs out of cigarettes he knows he needs to go to a convenient store. It's one thirty in the morning. He slowly starts to fall asleep and jolts himself awake when he swerves. This isn't safe but this is where he feels the most normal. Pulling over to the nearest gas station, he parks the car and takes his wallet and keys with him and heads inside. He heads straight to the coffee; grabbing a cup it almost pains him. _Luke_.

The amount of times that Jess had poured coffee instead of Luke, the limit didn't exist, but he misses him. He won't ever admit it, but he misses him. He shakes his head, putting a lid on, and heads to the cash register. He asks for red 99's. They don't even ask for his ID. Has he grown up that much? He takes the pack and he's glad he has his lighter with him. He doesn't get back in the car but finds a corner to sit on outside the gas station. He's sitting by a wall and leans against it grabbing the cigarettes and lighting it, inhaling it in almost a needy way.

**[ **_Though wise men at their end know dark is right,  
Because their words had forked no lightning they  
Do not go gentle into that good night. _**]**_  
_

The smell of nicotine and coffee are drenched on his breath and he wished he could care – he's not kissing anyone tonight. Jess wants to remember where it all went wrong, but he can't remember.

He can't remember a time where he wasn't the problem. He's been the problem for so long he doesn't think there was a time where he wasn't. If something bad happened that was in Stars Hollow from his arrival – he was the cause of it. Probably. But there was a 90% chance that he was the scapegoat for a lot of the madness that happened around him. He was a shit magnet and he always will be.

Someone stands in front of him, when he looks up he raises an eyebrow, "Can I help you?" He says in that voice that's more _'fuck off leave me alone'_. But he humors himself as he takes another drag of the cigarette.

"Just wanted to know if I could bum one," the girl says, staring at his fresh pack of cigarettes. He looks at his watch and it's now two in the morning a girl desperate for a smoke like him must be in shit conditions, he nods his head and she sits down next to him. He gives her the pack, putting another cigarette into his mouth. He hasn't chained smoked in a long time – he sort of quit when he was dating Rory only have one once a week until he just stopped. He didn't crave a cigarette when he was with Rory because she never put him in a stressful position unless Dean was involved or some ludicrous shit that somehow involved him getting a fair share of the blame.

He had quit the band of smoking until tonight. Now, he didn't care. He lights the girls cigarette and she takes a long drag like he did, her eyes are closed and he can see the black eye. He's had a good share of those.

He remembers this one time when he was sixteen, there was this kid, he was his best friend at the time, the one person that Jess learned to trust and his name was Daniel, Danny, for short. Both their dads split on 'em, moms were batshit crazy, they only had each other, he was getting picked on for some odd reason – Danny was always the laughing stock of the town and it had gotten so bad that the poor kid just came home with bloody noses all the time. Jess was raging – he was so fucking livid that he went to the guys the next morning and started beating the crap out of them; he could have killed them if it weren't for the police. They had peeled Jess away from the boys and Jess had gotten a black eye since the one kid got a pretty good swing before Jess dominated.

It wasn't the first time Jess had trouble with the law – the other time was stealing cigarettes but they caught him on tape. This time, it was for a good cause, he was just trying to defend his friend. But the thing about Jess was that he did it in such a bad way – no matter how good his intentions were he just could not be good. Not fully.

"How bad is the other guy?" Jess finally asked, not looking at her but looking at the ground, he eventually looked over at her, eyebrow raised.

"Busted lip, that's all I could give him before his buddy jumped in." She replied, taking a drag. He nodded his head – Jess never being good with small conversation. The girl was in a bad relationship, her boyfriend often abused her and the one time she fought back she got a black eye, but that wasn't uncommon. She closed her eyes again, wanting to cry but it physically paining her.

"Least you got a hit in." Jess simply replied before blowing some smoke out. "That must count for _something_."

If there was one thing Jess was bad at, it was comfort. The boy didn't know how to comfort because no one ever comforted him. Besides Rory. She was the only one who tried. Luke did in his own way. And it just reminded him of how much farther he had to go. He had to get out of Connecticut.

**[ **_Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright  
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light._ **]**

"I wish," she tells him and he can almost hear the sound of her heartbreaking how badly she just wants to break. She doesn't have shoes, her clothes are a little bloody and her hair looks like it's been pulled at. Jess should not be here right now but he doesn't know where else to go. Neither does she. He sighs a bit, running a hand through his hair.

"What are you running from?" she eventually asks him, taking another one of his cigarette out. This time he doesn't light it for her but hands her the lighter for her to light herself. He takes a drink from the coffee before he chuckles a bit – there's not an ounce of humor but he laughs because he's made a real mess of things.

"Lots of things, I'm like Jack Keurouac from On The Road." He hated people who talked about their problems like this. It seemed so – _fake._ Yet, here he was, ever so human.

It was something that had been pinning on him, the darkness that was slowly starting to become his friend. A list of all of his failures was slowly creeping in his head. He bit down on his lip now, shaking his head.

"I failed high school. Just – dropped out. Got kicked out of my uncle's – _completely_ ruined everything with this girl and – here I am." Just like that, it was so simple, he had failed. He had failed so epically.

The girl had wrapped her oversized jacket around her more, securing herself before she flicked the ash looking over at him. "I dropped out of high school too. Got kicked out of my parents, put into the system. Eighteen now so... I'm free. But – not really. There's still the boyfriend issue."

"The thing is, I could have— I could have made it." Jess had always known he had three modes. Fight, flight, and royally fuck up. And more often than not he royally fucked up. He had done all three in one night.

There was a constant need to impress someone – maybe it was just himself. No one else believed that he could do it so what was the goddamn point? What was the goddamn point in anything anymore? No matter what Jess did, no matter how many times he had to explain it, no matter how far he went or what great lengths he had to go to, to prove that he was maybe innocent, to prove that maybe he wasn't just a bad kid, no one would believe him because he had put himself down so low, he had fucked up. That's what it came down to. He fucked up. He fucked up bigger and better every time.

He was exactly like Tom and Daisy from the Great Gatsby; he was a careless person. He smashed up things and creatures and reverted back into the parties or his vast careless or whatever it was that kept him together and let others clean up the messes he had made.

_That's_ what he was good at. He was so good at pushing people away. He was so good at it because all of his life there had been no one there. No one cared for him, none of the girls in his life ever stayed. He knew that it had to do with the fact that he pushed people away – he pushed people away to test them, he wanted to see that if he tipped them over the edge would they stay? Would they fight the current? Everyone failed.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Why did he constantly get his heart broken knowing that? He doesn't know – maybe he's hoping that someday, one day, someone would prove him wrong. And then, the one time the girl, Rory, actually stayed in the current he drowned her, completely. He completely drowned her and tried to kill her. They were always stuck in that damn current though, they were the day they met but the thing was; they were perfect for each other. They didn't always work, but the middle was a good place to be, they had paralleled but also were so diverse in areas it was crazy. They had a real love between them and then it was nothing.

He knew he ruined it. He ruined everything.

Every.

Single.

Time.

**[** _Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,  
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,  
Do not go gentle into that good night. __**]**__  
_

"So why didn't you?" She asked, looking at the pack of cigarettes they were almost done with it. Jess noticed it too but he didn't care. He had grabbed a new one out and lit it, not caring that this would kill him, he was dying anyways.

"Didn't want to." He replied and that was that. He didn't want to prove to Luke that he could get better; he didn't want to prove to Luke that somehow he helped him. In the mind of Jess that was losing – that was giving up the gun. If he did that then what else would Jess have? He had stretched Luke so far but the thing was with Jess and Luke it was unconditional. Sure, he might have kicked Jess out, but that didn't mean they couldn't somehow work things out. He constantly hurt Luke because he cared – he wanted to see Luke try for Jess and plenty of times he did. He could count the many times that Luke tried for Jess, defended him when he didn't deserve it. Luke was the only one who would ever love him unconditionally. But he pushed him away because that's what Jess was good at.

It was not easy being Jess because he felt alone. Abandoned. And no, he wasn't adopted – but he still didn't know his real parents because they were never around. What was the point of having them? Jess didn't need anybody. He never needed anybody to make himself feel better about himself, he always knew that Jess and only Jess was the keeper of his own happiness, he knew this yet he still had fallen for material things – like... cigarettes and alcohol, and girls, even though some of it wasn't exactly material – he didn't need it. He just wanted to need it but he always knew that he didn't.

"Well, kid, I think you need to... just go out of town for a while, get your shit together, smoke more cigarettes get black out drunk and find your muse again. Read. Dance. Fuck up and fuck up again. Then - _then _shit will start to clear itself up. You'll see."

The girl had gotten up, threw two bucks for a new pack of cigarettes, it was a nice contribution. He nodded his head in thanks before he looked at the pack. He now only had one more cigarette left and he planned on smoking it and buying a new pack. He still had a long way to go.

**[** _Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight, Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light._** ]**

Jess finishes the last cigarette stomping on it before he goes back in. This time they check his ID, he hands it to him before he grabs the new carton of cigarettes and then he gets in his car and leaves.

He doesn't know what to feel when Heroes from David Bowie plays, but for some reason he turns the song up. This song reminds him of Rory because he knows that she likes him, she's always raving about David Bowie and he sees why now. With the window rolled down he heads back out on the freeway, knowing he can't turn back, he's done being a tourist, it's time for his next adventure. He knows that nothing will be perfect but that fire has been ignited again, and once it's lit, its hard to burn back out.

**[**_ And you, my father, there on the sad height,  
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night.  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light._ **]**


End file.
